Cookies and Cream Muddy Buddies are a quick and super easy addition to holiday gifts and snack trays. It takes about 10 minutes to measure, melt and mix the ingredients. Ready to eat! Packaging takes a little longer depending on your degree of fanciness! This recipe can easily be made by older children. Younger children might need some supervision for stirring melted chocolate into the cereal, but they will be stellar at shaking the bag to coat the chocolate covered cereal with Oreo crumbs and powdered sugar! These are not low carb by any means. However, if you add them to a party table, the servings will be generally small--about 1/4 cup with 18 carbs. A nibble of just a few will be considerably fewer carbs than that and will satisfy your sweet tooth just as well as a ... [Read More]
Quick and easy
Creamy Wild Rice Soup in the Slow Cooker
This supremely satisfying Creamy Wild Rice soup is comfort food. The wild rice is filling, while the finely minced and chopped vegetables give the soup consistent flavor. Healthy, nutritious and earthy good. Beans aren’t usually on the menu at Chez Charlene’s. Hearty Calico Beans, of course, which uses kidney beans, lima beans or navy beans. Tacos or taco salad with black beans or refried beans. I had to look up Cannellinni beans when I saw this recipe. It is one of four types of white beans -- Navy beans, Great Northern beans, Cannellini beans, or Baby Lima beans aka butter beans. I’ve heard of the other three and used them in cooking. How did I miss Cannellini beans? Cannellini beans are the largest of the group and because of their traditional kidney shape, they can also be ... [Read More]
No Noodle Chicken Lasagna
No Noodle Chicken Lasagna saves you the time needed for cooking and placing the noodles used in a full out lasagna. But you still get to enjoy the creamy deliciousness of the lasagna filling topped with marinara sauce and mozzarella cheese. And it is delicious! Quick too. No one step that takes way longer than the others. They all flow together swiftly. Takes less than 10 minutes to put together. Baking time is only 25 minutes. You can have it in the oven shortly after arriving home from work and on the table in just over 30 minutes. Serve with a salad – freshly made while the chicken bakes or poured from a bag and dressed at the last minute. And since there are no carbs from noodles, enjoy that warm, buttery, fragrant slice of garlic bread! Sounds like a winner to me!! This ... [Read More]
Brie and Dark Cherry
Need a super easy appetizer for your next holiday gathering? You will definitely want to try these bite-sized crispy phyllo cups full of melty brie cheese topped with sweet dark cherries. Maple syrup gives a depth of flavor and a new twist to the flavor. No maple syrup and don't want to buy a bottle for just one recipe? Substitute honey. Honey is a little sweeter than maple syrup, but in the quantity we are using, that doesn't matter. Substitute with the same amount of honey. Brown sugar is another possible substitution. Brown sugar is a little less sweet than maple syrup so you will need to increase the amount to 1/4 cup OR 4 tablespoons. Just sprinkle over the top of each cup. Corn syrup on the shelf? Yes, that works but it only makes the cherries sweeter without adding ... [Read More]
Creamy Classic Eggnog
Holidays are made special for several reasons. One reason is that we add a little "extra something" to our lives. Food that is prepared just for that meal as in Thanksgiving. Or food that is prepared for the entire holiday season. Eggnog is so easy to make that it could be easily available all year around. But then it wouldn't be special! Eggnog has been around for centuries. Milk, eggs and spices were mainly available to landowners. Only they had the resources to keep cows and chickens and to buy imported spices. Monks recorded the first recipes, and wealthy landowners were quick to adopt the habit of toasting one another's good health and continued prosperity with the unique drink served in small wooden cups called noggins. Upstart English colonials brought livestock with them ... [Read More]
Bacon and Three Cheese Stuffed Mini Peppers
Bacon and Three Cheese Stuffed Mini Peppers are a quick and easy appetizer for any occasion. A plate full of this colorful deliciousness turns the occasion into instant party! The hardest part of this easy dish is waiting five minutes for the cheese to turn golden underneath the broiler. Party in less than fifteen minutes!! To make things go even faster, use precooked bacon instead of cooking your own. I always have a package of bacon in the freezer, but sometimes we need something faster than the bacon would thaw and then cook. Precooked bacon to the rescue. You can cut the precooked and packaged bacon slices into small bits. OR you can open a package of precooked bacon crumbles. I'm talking the real deal bacon -- no imitation meat or bacon flavor or anything like that. One ... [Read More]
